Juggling

As you can no doubtedly tell from my recent lack of posts, I am a very, VERY busy girl this week. There is SO much to do at the new barn and not enough hours in the day, and I am working my BUTT off trying to get all my projects under control AND do all my daily tasks AND stand in for a lot of things that the guys can't do when we are short-staffed. But it's impossible to do my job when I have to do someone else's job as well, so I certainly hope that we can get that situation remedied soon. As it stands, I need SO badly to go to the store and get supplies for the farm that I might just be doing that at 6am tomorrow, because I need to make sure the guys know what's on tap for tomorrow since I didn't write it down on the white board tonight (I quite honestly just forgot... didn't leave the farm until almost 8). But despite all the CRAZINESS and not knowing anything but trying to do everything all at once, I love it. Once everything settles down and I actually complete the 29,000 projects she wants me to work on, I'll be able to really settle into a rhythm and take things as they come instead of struggling to juggle them all at once. It's insane but it's great. It's also very exhausting and takes up pretty much my entire life at the moment, which I will need to figure out how to balance. My room is littered with boxed and clothes, all things that need to be unpacked and put away... but I'm just too tired at the end of the day to do it.

And the extra horrible part of it all is that Gogo is getting less than her usual amount of daily attention. I've been so busy these past few days that she didn't get groomed or longlined from Monday through Wednesday, just walked. She hadn't even gotten to handgraze at all because it's been either pouring or completely dark out by the time I can actually do it. We also have some seriously slacker staff on some counts so her stall hasn't been done until like 11am these past few days, which REALLY annoys me, so much so that I've just been doing it myself. Unfortunately for me, she's stuck in the older barn in the smallest stall, which is only about 10x10. It does have the ComfortStall system, but I'd still like to get her somewhere bigger. We are about to be totally full up though, so I dunno how that's going to work. It's a little bit crazy and there is much to get acclimated to.

She is, however, getting to know and love the treadmill, and so am I. That thing is AWESOME! It has all sort of different speeds and heights that it can go to, and you can set it for different programs with varying levels of speed and angle for a real workout. Gogo, however, is just getting the Level 1 set, a totally flat and steady walk for 25 minutes at a time. The treadmill is ideal therapy - it's in a totally straight line (no drunken sailor weaving or turns or hills), it's a hard surface (good for stimulating tendon regeneration), and it's covered so it can be used rain or shine. Gogo was, as usual, totally the proverbial cool cucumber when I put her on it, although it took her a few minutes to really get it - every time I told her good girl, she'd stop, which meant she'd go backwards and hit the butt bar! It only took a few minutes to really understand, and the next day she was totally fine.



More pictures of Gogo on the treadmill coming soon.

Today I had to run allllllll the way to Waterbury to get grain from the sole Buckeye dealer in the state of Connecticut, and I ended up back at the barn quite late. Gogo is now scheduled to go on the treadmill at 11am every day, and hopefully if I ever start to take a lunch break (still haven't taken one all week), I will be able to long line her then. She got a nice grooming and a long lining session today when I got back, which was great and made her a very happy kid. There were several sets of trot poles set up around the ring, and we walked over those a good number of times, which is very useful for losening up those tight hips and back. I never ended up putting her on the Robaxin because her back soreness went away rather quickly (I think it HAD to be related to that vaccine reaction), and she's been off Surpass for nearly 2 weeks now - I hope to NOT put her back on. I haven't iced her hinds this week because quite frankly, they've been tighter than they've been since the injury, and cooler too. They're still not normal and they're still not as cool as I'd like, but give the circumstance I'm impressed.

And the best part.... ONE WEEK til I can get back on her and walk again!!!!!!


Now hopefully tomorrow, after I get Sophie bodyclipped, Pilgrim's mane pulled, all the needed barn supplies from the store, the new hay schedule set in place with the non-English-speaking workers on board, the maintenace guy called about the broken stall front, the folders for the new horses set up, two stalls prepped for two new incoming boarders arriving tomorrow morning, the blanket room measured for new racks, the board and billing book updated, the grains premade, and the 25,000 other things I'm forgetting here all done, then I will be able to maybe unpack some of my stuff from the trailer and figure out where to send my winter blankets to for cleaning. I also made friends with our exceedingly pro-barefoot farrier... more on that later. As for now..... SLEEEEEEP.